New York, NY (3/5/11) – Sophomore Heather Gearity (Rutherford, NJ / Rutherford) posted an NCAA provisional qualifying mark in the pentathlon as Montclair State took part at the Columbia Last Chance meet at The Armory on Saturday.

Gearity became the second Red Hawks to post an NCAA provisional mark in the event this year as she joined freshman Krystal Ellis (Morristown, NJ / Morristown), who accomplished the feat at the CTC Championships.

In that CTC Championship, Gearity, the Outstanding Track Athlete at last month’s NJAC Championships,  missed the qualifying standard by five points as she totaled 2,995 points in the five events.

On Saturday, she would break the 3,000-point barrier with a personal-best 3,095 points.  Gearity ran 9.78 seconds in the 60 meter hurdles and then high jumped 1.52 meters. She would set a personal best in the shot put at 7.93 meters and added a mark of 4.96 in the long jump before wrapping up her competition with a personal-best 2:25.19 in the 800 meters.

Michelle McNulty (Bayonne, NJ / Bayonne) also competed and ran a personal best 1:00.07 in the 400 meters.

McNulty and Gearity comprise one half of Montclair’s 4x400 relay team that is on the provisional list for next week’s NCAA Championships at Capital University in Bexley, Ohio. Ellis and Ashadaya Patterson (Trenton, NJ / Northern Burlington) are the other half of the quartet, which was ranked 10th in the latest USTFCCCA rankings.